Workers pay the price as greedy elites bleed the industry dry
Thousands of employees of several companies in the mining sector are sitting at home without pay as sub-contracted companies collapse under the weight of mismanagement, corruption, and political favoritism.
According to the Secretary General of the Botswana Mine Workers Union (BMWU), Mbiganyi Gaekgotswe, the rot runs deep, especially in government-linked mining companies.
In an exclusive interview, Gaekgotswe expressed concern over the extent of the crisis, pointing fingers at the Citizen Economic Empowerment (CEE) policy, which he says has opened the door to exploitation and cronyism.
He said the policy favors citizen-owned companies over foreign companies. “The problem is that the citizen companies are more concerned about the image they must portray or project to the public than about sustainable operations,” Gasekgotswe said. “They end up living beyond their means, at the expense of their employees,” he added, noting that many contracts in the mining industry have been handed to inexperienced, under-qualified companies with political connections, often with disastrous results.
“Many of the contracted companies were used as a conduit to siphon funds from the government to a network of friends who do not care about the welfare of their employees. Multi-national companies, on the other hand, would get a P100 million contract but they would ensure that their employees were paid well, had medical aid, and other benefits. Meanwhile, the main company would contract a citizen-owned company for a similar job for P50 million, which means the employees get less salaries, no medical aid, and even the job may not be completed,” he said.
The BMWU is inundated with cases from several mining companies in which the government is a shareholder, and Gaekgotswe says there is an urgent need to investigate some of the companies. His observation is that well-connected individuals get multi-million contracts from big mining companies, get their share, and disappear into thin air without paying their employees.
“I believe that the Citizen Economic Empowerment policy had good intentions, but what is happening on the ground is something else. We are where we are because of CEE and it should be reviewed,” he said.
Meanwhile, as recently as last week, the union held the first creditors meeting at the Gaborone High Court in connection with the ongoing liquidation of Mupani Gold Mine, and the meeting confirmed the appointment of a liquidator.
He said that whilst hundreds of employees were left unpaid, the liquidator has signaled that the mine needs at least USD 20 million to clear the debts and return to operations.
The BMWU Secretary General says while diamonds are not doing well in the international market, the situation is not new, and the union is battling to prevent retrenchments at Debswana, the country’s biggest state-owned mining company. He criticized the government’s premature announcement of retrenchments, calling it reckless and panic-inducing, especially when negotiations are still ongoing.
Debswana is reportedly on the verge of retrenching. Gasekgotswe says the BMWU is continuing to engage the company with a view to avert the retrenchments. He said that it was an anomaly for the President to rush to make such a big announcement of possible retrenchments whilst the negotiations were still ongoing, and therefore he caused a lot of panic.
